Hmm ok, but for somebody who doesn't care, you certainly seem to have a problem with the facts being put into the public domain. And by the way, making personal insults just reflects badly upon yourself, and the 'posse' you're trying to represent.
I don't care and I don't have a problem with people reading your "facts" so here is your little rant in all its glory and there is no need for people to click on your site (wouldnt want you to make money out of adverts on your site as we are talking about the oppressed workers here now would we?)
A Response to OBEY Plagiarist
Posted December 14, 2007 by jmacphee in In the News
It's taken me a long time to get this together, but I wanted to throw my ideas into the discussion around the artwork/plagiarism of Shepard Fairey that has been spinning around the web. For those that might not know, Shepard Fairey is the creator of the "Andre the Giant has a Posse" sticker campaign, which became a long running series of "Obey Giant" posters. Mark Vallen, a Los Angeles-based artist (who created some of my favorite street posters from the early LA punk scene), recently published a long critique of Fairey on his blog, Art For A Change. What I'm writing here directly relates to Mark's piece, so if you haven't read it, give it a look here.
Mark's write-up came out of a long discussion that has been going on between a number of politically-motivated artists and archivists about Fairey's work. Throughout the whole process of discussion it has seemed clear that we have been coming from parallel but divergent positions, with different parts of the larger issues at hand being more or less important to each of us. Mark is clearly concerned with social and political potentials of ART, and believes Fairey's wholesale "theft" of historical images cheapens the potential for art to make change in the world. Lincoln Cushing, an artist, archivist and author who has been involved in the discussions, is very concerned with how plagiarism hurts efforts to empower our communities with their own revolutionary art history. However, he also supports strategic use of existing copyright law, and recently got Fairey to pay retroactive royalties on a t-shirt with Cuban artwork appropriated without credit. Favianna Rodriguez, also involved, has been particularly frustrated with Fairey's use of and profiting off of the art of people of color, and the images of the struggles of people of color, while he has had to pay none of the costs for having to live as a person of color in this society or world.
People are already rallying to Fairey's defense, claiming his appropriations are legitimate ways to create art, or simply attacking his critics, namely Mark Vallen. I'm not really interested in attacking Fairey, I simply want to make transparent the politics and economics his work uses and depends on. I don't know Fairey, and he might be the nicest guy in the world. But what is important to me is not his personality, the quality of his artwork, or if he saves the whales, but how his artwork actually functions in the world. It is definitely tempting to use Fairey as a punching bag for the theft of the visual history of social movements, but I'd rather use his mode of operation as a really great point of discussion that raises a whole series of extremely interesting and important issues. I thank Mark and everyone else that has taken part in this conversation for doing just that. As Fairey himself always says, "question everything."
As I said, I am not very interested in whether Fairey's work is "good art" or not, and I'm definitely not very focused on making sure the artists he took from get paid, or sue Fairey. To me that is a personal issue and if artists that feel their work has been stolen want to go down that road, it's their business. To me it's a political dead end. The legal system is never going to hold Fairey accountable, and trying to use extremely flawed copyright laws (that primarily protect huge corporations like Disney, who actually stole from other artists and writers the ideas and images of their early cartoons) seems like a lousy recourse to me. Maybe an individual artist like Rupert Garcia (see Mark's article for the specifics) will be able get some money out of Fairey, which is fine and good, but to me it sidelines the real issues.
I believe Fairey exemplifies in many ways the operational model of capitalism. He extracts resources, largely from political struggles of Third World and working class people, and then slightly processes those resources (images), commodifies them (strips them of any history or relationship to where they came from), and sells them on the market. Like capitalism he simultaneously sells high-art versions to wealthy elites and then cheaper mass-commodity versions to the very same communities he is taking images from. This is how the making of all corporate products works. What is great about Fairey is that he makes it so easy to see the process at work, and develop ways to critique it, challenge it, and hopefully change it.
For those that don't know, here's the 101 on how Fairey (and many others) create their art:
1) He looks through old books of political posters, photos, etc. and finds something he likes aesthetically, usually images that appear iconic of certain political motifs and therefore seem "authentic," i.e. fists in the air, rifles, representations of ideology like red stars, people of color, etc. (I suspect that for years he was using the book Prop Art by Gary Yanker as his primary source, as every other page contains an image he has taken, but he's clearly moved on to other sources.)
2) He scans the image and runs it through a set of Photoshop or Illustrator filters that usually slightly soften the edges, change the colors, flatten the image if it has any depth.
3) He might remove sections of the background and introduce a new border or pattern (usually lifted from somewhere else).
4) Finally he adds the word "OBEY" and some graphic representation of Andre the Giant.
Fairey's work simultaneously depends on both knowledge and ignorance in his audience. What I mean by this is that for the art to be successful, the viewer needs to be networked into a global culture with massive access to information, but a culture that is both entirely overwhelming in sheer volume of "data" and also one that privileges only certain narratives to string that data together. For a Fairey piece to be successful the audience needs to know that the work comes from the world of the "real" or "authentic", i.e. political social movements like the Cuban, Russian, or Chinese revolutions (or more recently the Zapatistas), and/or cultural social movements like the Haight-Ashbury psychedelic music scene. At the same time Fairey depends on his audience to be ignorant of the SPECIFIC location of the source material, they should NOT know what poster he stole, or exactly from where.
This is EXACTLY how advertising works. Unfortunately Fairey publicly claims to be critiquing advertising in his work, calling it Phenomonology. The front page of his website states, "Because people are not used to seeing advertisements or propaganda for which the motive is not obvious, frequent and novel encounters with Obey propaganda provoke thought and possible frustration." As I wrote in Stencil Pirates, "Although he once said 'Giant has a Posse has no meaning,' Shepard Fairey himself couldn’t resist the temptation to give capitalist meaning to his work, and now he has an entire cottage industry selling posters, shirts, hats, and his own design skills with the images and words he once stenciled across the globe. Sure, the words 'Andre the Gaint' have no fixed meaning, but neither do the words The Gap, Old Navy, or Tommygear. Their meaning is given to them in the branding efforts of the company owners." There's no doubt what OBEY means these days, simply SHOP.
What Fairey has done is used all the modern advertising tools at his disposal to create an ad for himself. He understands (consciously or not) that in the current incarnation of capitalism not only are the products we create immediately absorbed into the world of commodities ("things" that seem outside and separate from ourselves, as if they have a life outside of us), but we ourselves have become commodities, we look at ourselves from the outside, and buy and sell not just our physical labor, but our entire identities, existences, subjectivities, etc. While individuals buy Fairey artworks, corporations with larger budgets can buy Fairey's branding ideas, street cred, or even the man himself. Sometimes I wonder if the high end collectors of Fairey's silkscreened works also go out and buy every variation of the Mountain Dew logos he designs?
There are a couple things that kill me about all this. First, because Fairey presents himself as challenging to corporate advertising and control, he's regularly placed on panels and interviewed in books, TV and films in the role of critic. There must be nothing more comforting to advertising execs than to have their main public critic be someone they can go have a beer with afterwards and discuss ideas for the "street" campaign for the new Led Zepplin box set! This contradiction is one of my only beefs with Fairey himself, not the system he's part of.
Second, Fairey's digging up of the visual elements of political history does more to hide that history than illuminate it. Fairey depends on the source of his work being perceived of as "authentic" or "real." At the same time, he does nothing to let people know the images are taken from actual historical moments and struggles. I'm much less concerned with this tendency being labeled "theft," than with the lack of attribution of the source material, or even acknowledgment that there is source material. Our society is pretty seriously f**ked up, hundreds of millions are hungry, homeless or in prison, and those are just the most base of factors to judge the health of a community. The history of people struggling to change these things is important, and is largely removed from popular culture and public education. In order to create a better world, we need to have an understanding of the successes and failures of those that came before us. Unfortunately Fairey's work simply skims the "cool" parts of these struggles off the top, and buries the rest back into the books he took the images from. For anyone that thinks I'm overstating my point, and believe people really do know where Fairey's images are from, I'm sorry to say you are very wrong. I was recently in a room of University of California students (college students in one of the best university systems in the US), and not a single one of them recognized an image of Angela Davis, who teaches in the University of California system! Fairey's work is not bringing attention to Davis, the Black Panthers, or any of the struggles in the Black community, but instead uses the image of a self-confident and militant Black woman to sell sweatshop-made OBEY winter caps at department stores.
This erasure of history cuts both ways. On the one hand Fairey's decontextualization of the posters of the Cuban revolution does nothing to educate people about the history there. On the other, swiping images of heroic Cuban guerillas hides the actual Cuban revolution behind the surface level he presents. Fidel Castro and Che Guevara essentially become cool, with no room left to discuss with any complexity the role they played in Cuba or the rest of the world. At best they become cardboard cutouts (I guess wheatepasted cut-outs is more appropriate) to idolize. Both Fidel and Che are extremely complicated and problematic figures, and we need to be able to grapple with their actual history and beliefs, not the two-dimensial version.
One thing Mark, Lincoln, Favianna and others are deeply concerned about with Fairey's work is the using of social movement imagery, as I understand it because he has no "right" to it. But this confuses me. I want to know who DOES have the right to it? Are some people more authentic leftists, so they have more of a right to authentic leftist graphics? For example, the Russian Revolution was real, it happened, it changed peoples lives, there is no question about that, but the public construction of the revolution, i.e. how all the posters, photos, books, etc. build up to a coherent whole in the social imagination, is that "real"? Authentic? Does any one group have the right to claim it? To claim authenticity? Does Fairey have less right to the social imaginary of revolution than the rest of us? Have we made a revolution and he hasn't?
What I find most troubling about this is that it seems that we (for which I include those on the Left that would critique Fairey) have reached the terrible point that what is most important to us is trying to rip our identity from the jaws of Fairey (capitalism), rather than fighting capitalism itself. Fairey is simply an obvious visual example of the process that goes on around us each and every day. Is there any image we can create that isn't going to be immediately absorbed by advertising, and thus capitalism? Capitalism is an economic system we have no choice but to exist in until we fight our way out of it. No one is exempt from it, there is no "outside" the system. Unfortunately we all need to buy and sell things to survive. What are the benefits of pretending our culture is precious and only accessible to the "holy few" that somehow have proven they are worthy of it? Can the past be opened up for use in a way that isn't simply commercial, but also helps us try to change economic and political systems that stunt and destroy the lives of billions of people.
I understand that Fairey is not simply using social movement history and other artists work, but immensely profiting off it. One important thing to acknowledge is that Fairey is not just appropriating, but also copyrighting images that exist in our common history. Posters and graphics made in the heat of political struggles are often made by anonymous individuals or groups that want to keep the images in the public domain for use in further struggle. It is unfortunate that Fairey is attempting to personally capitalize on the generosity of others and privatize and enclose the visual commons (as seen by the prominent copyright symbols on his website and products). But once again, this is the machinations of capitalism, not simply Fairey as an individual. Can Nike profit from social movements but not Fairey? How about a supposedly "good" corporation, like one that makes windmills or solar panels? The building of new culture out of the pieces of the old is standard practice, and in the age of google image search, it's only going to get more and more pronounced, with the distinctions between original work and "new" work getting blurrier and blurrier. What are the criteria for a "new" work versus a copy or theft?
To tie this all up, I believe artists can and should play a role in changing our world for the better. I think one way of doing this is trying to really understand the political, social and economic structures we find ourselves in, and using our art to illustrate them. Only when we understand the gears at work that are oppressing us will we all be able to throw a wrench in them. Unfortunately the work of Shepard Fairey, although exemplary of oppressive economic systems, hides these very systems rather than making them transparent. His work will only be successful (at more than making money) when he cites his source materials and tries to cut through the amnesiac haze of our society instead of adding to it. When a Fairey wheatpaste on the street becomes not an advertisement for his clothing line but a site for arguing over how we fight and struggle in this world today, I'll be the first one to send people out to look at it and argue about it.
***All of the images here are taken from Vallen's critique page, so you can go there to find the full citations on where the original images are from. I haven't quite figured out how to put image captions into the blog yet!***
Comments
Excellent, thoughtful post!
I have to admit that I was turned off by Vallen's overall critique, primarily because I have no respect for copyright law or individual claims to image ownership, and couldn't care less if an artist 'can draw well.'
That said, the juxtaposition of the "Down with the White-ness" image with Fairey's "Power to the Posse" Andre-version makes my skin crawl. The image by itself seems benign enough, but when viewed next to its original, it looks shockingly racist. I would like to think that Fairey's intentions are not malicious, but I can't help wondering why someone would take a powerful image of Black struggle and white-ify it.
It's extremely important that the context and history of the social struggles associated with Fairey's appropriations be brought to light, and I'm glad that Vallen has attempted to do so. If Fairey were truly interested in acting in solidarity with such movements, then perhaps he would have done so himself. But in many places Vallen's critique sounds shrill and bitter, and reeks of aesthetic purism.
Is Fairey really a selfish cynic, interested only in exploiting the imagery of social movements for his own personal pursuit of wealth and fame, or is he a misguided, but well-meaning, critic of capitalism? Vallen seems to have assumed the former, but I'm not convinced, either way.
Perhaps it's worth noting that Fairey has recently donated a poster for the Witness Against Torture campaign (witnesstorture.org), raising their profile and financial resources in ways that were previously inconceivable for that group. So maybe there's hope for him yet (although a cynic might point out how much this only increases the appeal of his brand for his left-leaning customers, but perhaps for all the right reasons).
I think too many good-intentioned artists fall for a kind of Warhol-ian trap, whereby they think they can critique, or aid in defeating, capitalism by embracing its exploitative nature (thereby holding up a mirror to society, as the theory goes, by embodying its contradictions).
Like you, I think we would be better served by art that provokes debate and works in solidarity with social movements, instead of mimicking the insidious methods of the system that they hope to defeat.
Posted by: jason at December 14, 2007 12:32 PM
Thanks Josh for this great essay...
Similar questions are raised in this debate between photographer Susan Meiselas and painter Joy Garnett. Long story short, Susan took a famous photograph of a Sandinista guerrilla, which Joy then appropriated and de-contextualized as part of a series of paintings. The debate starts off being about "fair use" and the limits of copyright, until Susan turns it around to talk about the rights and respect owed to the subject of the photo... Originally printed in Harper's, you can read the article here:
firstpulseprojects.com/On-the-Rights-of-Molotov-Man.pdf (PDF format).
Posted by: ryan at December 17, 2007 2:51 PM
Regarding the Witness Against Torture poster, I find that Shepard's design is just another branded product of obeygiant. Yes it becomes a means of fundraising for the organization that is active and working against Guantanamo, and they are pleased with his design and participation. I applaud the willingness to shed light on the campaign.
The poster contains the obey logo in the top center of the design. It becomes another Obey poster, behaving as self-promotion for Shepard's brand and product.
What would be the difference in having a Nike swoosh in that same location? Is this the same behavior as corporate sponsorship? Where a business has much to gain by associating themselves with a movement(or subculture, class, ethnicity, lifestyle, aesthetic, etc)
Ryan mentions a good article on decontextualization of revolutionary imagery, that adds more depth to the conversation.
I had the opportunity, a few years ago, to ask shepard his thoughts about the appropriation and tokenization of armed struggle. He responded with the belief that he was engaged in "educating" people about the movements he removes the images from.
I would have to argue that his ability to remove them, and so successfully brand them as obey characters diminishes their place in history. Especially since they are taken out of all context. Similiar to Susan Meiselas protests against the use of the "molotov man", in the article suggested above.
A manner of avoiding such misrepresentations is for artists to be involved in the movements that they are visually representing. Such relationships create accountability and imagery desired by those struggling for whatever ends...
Posted by: k.see at December 18, 2007 2:02 AM
Etrange débat derrière lequel ont sent l'amertume et l'appat du gain pour quelques royalties... La plupart des artistes de propagande dont sont issus les visuels de Fairey étaient rarement cités pendant lesdites campagnes. Le fait que certains de vos concitoyens ne soient pas capables de reconnaitre des oeuvres russes, chinoises, cubaines ni même de reconnaitre Angela Davis montre surtout de graves lacunes culturelles et historiques! Le thème de Fairey est la propagande comme matraquage publicitaire, en ce sens, son travail reste cohérent. Cette vision des choses a d'ailleurs été détournée en France il y a quelques temps : des supermarchés ont utilisé le visuel d'un fameux pochoir datant de mai 68 pour vanter leur guerre contre les prix chers...
Posted by: RoskÖ at December 25, 2007 4:14 PM
sorry it took me so long to reply to this- been meaning to for a while- i also had the opportunity to confront mr. fairey a number of years ago, at an opening of his at C-Pop Gallery in Detroit. while less articulate, my critique had much in common with some points josh & marc have made- that shepard's work exploits a glamorized approach to revolutionary images, while stripping any revolutionary content out of them. his reply was basically an extended "yeah, so?" i remember certain choice tidbits like "i never said i wasn't a capitalist" - to my criticism of his use of revolutionary figures & styles to sell his products- and "so what, you like lenin?" to my questioning his use of the Bolshevik's likeness.
i find very interesting the broader point to be made here as well, about the model of mr. fairey's work that many have hopped on, with legions of young artists using appropriated public space to create their own brands, which they can spin off to lucrative shirt, sneaker & toy sales....
to me, it seems in many ways like an extension of warhol's flirtation with advertising- the dangers of replicating capitalist processes of branding without any real critique of their insidious form or content....
Posted by: erik ruin at December 26, 2007 4:32 PM
I had to use a online translator, since I don't know French. This is the closest I could come to what I believe RoscO to be saying:
"Strange debate behind which were sent bitterness and bait to gain some royalties ... Most artists propaganda from which the visuals of Fairey were rarely mentioned during those campaigns. The fact that some of your fellow citizens will not be able to recognize works of Russian, Chinese, Cuban or even recognize Angela Davis shows serious shortcomings mainly cultural and historical! Fairey's theme is propaganda as hype, in this sense, his work remains consistent. This view of things has been hijacked by France some time ago: supermarkets have used the video of a famous stencil dated May 68 praising their war against the dear price ..."
From the perspective of propaganda as hype, and excluding all commodification of art or politic, doesn't that render his "anti-war" work insubstantial and vapid?
If its another Obey campaign, what is the directive?
Posted by: k.see at December 26, 2007 9:02 PM
Thanks for your thoughtful take on this matter.
For a long time I've wondered what Fairey is actually capable of as an 'artist.' Contemporary graffiti artist Kaws, by contrast, is a guy who, despite the guerilla aspects of his work, can actually paint. While I'm impressed with what Fairey has accomplished from a 'street art' perspective, I'm intensely annoyed by the fact that he's never displayed any true artistic skill. Maybe some design skill, but too much of his work is 'borrowed' to be certain even of that.
He's a marketing genius, but by no means an artistic genius. I think that one actually have to create art to be one of those, and I've yet to see images that he's actually rendered without the aid of two-dimensional source material.
I've long known where many of his appropriated images came from, but I still think that Mark's exposé was a serious intellectual b**ch slap that calls Fairey's creativity fully into question -- for both those who had some idea of what he'd been doing, and those who had no clue.
Posted by: St. Paco at January 2, 2008 4:04 AM
Mark Vallen's opinions on what constitutes good art seem extremely self serving...he comes off bitter and jaded, not to mention misinformed (study Lichtenstein before you assume his
intentions.)
But he has a good heart, and alot of passion for the people he wants to defend. I'm not a big Shep fan but I'm not wanting to hate him either... So here's my two cents-
Good art is art that gets a reaction, negative or positive, that can lead to a meaningful dialogue . Thats one cent.
Cent number two: Good art doesn't give you all the answers, it forces you to ask alot of questions.
I'm just not feeling the argument that Fairey is being malicious by denying people specific credit or identification.What if everybody took the time to ask questions about what they were seeing? A little research and BAM they'll find it...it's not Fairey's fault that people can't recognize Angela Davis. If anything, he's helping that cause just by using her image in the first place...couldn't you argue that?
Posted by: casper at January 8, 2008 10:54 PM
Interesting post on flickr
www.flickr.com/photos/kev_walsh/2176402897/Posted by: Josh at January 10, 2008 11:31 AM
A long Fairey critique has been posted in French here:
vigieblock.wordpress.com/2008/01/05/obey-or-not-obey/Posted by: Josh at January 10, 2008 2:37 PM
"It's not Fairey's fault that people can't recognize Angela Davis. If anything, he's helping that cause just by using her image in the first place...couldn't you argue that?"
That, to me, is a major part of the argument. People don't recognize Angela Davis, or many of the likenesses Fairey uses. So how will they be informed if there aren't artists, and others, teaching these things.
So in the instance of Fairey's work and this ctritique, I dont think its enough to just make a picture of them. Its irresponsible, it only conveys what Fairey wants to, which is? (Buy my stuff, or question everything...) Whatever it is it takes someone else to be able to point at the image, decontextualize it from its "Obey" form, and say, "That person on the wall is Angela Davis, she was an empowered black woman from the...period, and did...." A stepping point, yet a difficult one to begin with.
Posted by: k.see at January 10, 2008 4:54 PM
Has anyone been to the store that Fairey runs (or perhaps just designed?) at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris? It's called "Black block" or some slight derivation of "black bloc".
Posted by: kevin at January 11, 2008 9:45 AM
Although I'm not much of a fan of Fairey's work, due to the extremely critical take on his work I would like to point out that in reference to the Nazi "Death Head" controversy, that symbol, much like the swastika, the Nazi party themselves appropriated.
See this Wikipedia article for reference:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TotenkopfAgain, the only reason I felt the need to reply is not in defense of Fairey, but if you are going to use historical reference against someone, you should at least spend some time researching the references you use.
Posted by: Mike at January 11, 2008 5:38 PM
Thanks for the link Mike, but I actually think if you look at and read the Wikipedia entry a little closer, you'll see that yes, the skull and crossbones is a long used symbol, but the specific design used by Fairey (as shown in the hat image in the Wiki entry) IS from the SS. I in no way think this makes Fairey a Nazi or anything like that, nor do I think I argued in my article above against using historical material in art. Most people absorb millions of images a day, there is no way to avoid some of those working their way out in what we call our own individual artwork. The issue is that Fairey purposefully obscures his historical references, thus obscuring history. Given the lack of any long-term memory in most aspects of our culture, I would argue this does a serious disservice to the hope of building a politics that can get us out of some of the mess we are in. Clearly hip wealthy art buyers want actual history stripped from their investment purchases, it's in their interest in more ways than one. But I hold out the hope that art can play a role in struggling for a better world, not just making more money for rich people.
Posted by: josh at January 11, 2008 6:03 PM
Thanks Josh for giving a link to my website. Honestly, I took most of my references for my article from here and from mark vallen's article too. It's very hard to find articles about it in french. Sorry for my bad english but I'd like to go further.
What disturbed me the most in fairey's work is that I fell like he's making a real cynical work by reducing his references to a formal expression and evacuating the meaning in a laugh. Reducing Angela Davis to just another beautiful anonymous black woman, when part of her struggle was precisely to escape that, that could be interpretated as a spit. It should be, because you can't take social and political struggles, reduce them to meaninglesses signs and jokes and say "Hey, no offense, I'm just an artist". That's the kind of justification an advertiser would give to an unsatisfied consummer. The polemic about the nazi skull is not very surprising, so. This is pure Pop art. Just as Jasper Johns saying about Pop Art that "a flag was just a flag", Fairey give us his "a shirt is just a shirt." Sorry, I don't buy it.
I fell also like Fairey is a product of our time and an agent of what Baudrillard called "le recyclage culturel" (cultural recycling"). I see is production as a mode phenomenon gimmick, not more, not less. Maybe that's why there is Obey giant, maybe that's why someone else can sell products called Obey the Baby, Obey the Pug, etc. I guess, if I search deep, that I'll eventually find an 'obey your desire" put on some underwears... Fairey exist because there are people to buy his stuff, people eagers to report his artshows as they would report the issue of the last next hype sneakers. I can't help myself to see Fairey posters in the street as real smart street marketing.
Here is an extract of Baudrillard's book "la société de consommation" ("the consummering society "): "Ce à quoi ont droit tous les acculturés (et à la limite, pas même les "cultivés" n'y échappent, ou n'y échapperont) ce n'est pas à la culture, c'est au recyclage culturel. C'est à "être dans le coup", c'est à "savoir ce qui se fait", c'est à remettre à jour, tous les mois ou tous les ans, sa panoplie culturelle. C'est à subir cette contrainte de brève amplitude, perpétuellement mouvante comme la mode, et qui est l'inverse absolu de la culture conçue comme :
1. Patrimoine héréditaire d'oeuvres, de pensées, de traditions;
2. Dimension continue d'une réflexion théorique et critique -transcendance critique et fonction symbolique."
Obey Giant ? Don't think, just buy it...
Posted by: virgile at January 12, 2008 7:56 AM
this is a great, thought-provoking post that brings all the difficult issues to the fore, and then some. For me the following is the "money quote" if you'll excuse the expression:
One thing Mark, Lincoln, Favianna and others are deeply concerned about with Fairey's work is the using of social movement imagery, as I understand it because he has no "right" to it. But this confuses me. I want to know who DOES have the right to it? Are some people more authentic leftists, so they have more of a right to authentic leftist graphics? For example, the Russian Revolution was real, it happened, it changed peoples lives, there is no question about that, but the public construction of the revolution, i.e. how all the posters, photos, books, etc. build up to a coherent whole in the social imagination, is that "real"? Authentic? Does any one group have the right to claim it? To claim authenticity? Does Fairey have less right to the social imaginary of revolution than the rest of us? Have we made a revolution and he hasn't?
This, imho, is more at the crux of this issue than some of the concerns voiced here about the "loss of history". If you think it through again, you may find yourself to be on the wrong side of a Free Speech issue (ironically), just as Meiselas did re: the molotov cerfuffle, which was why it behooved her to quickly articulate a rationale to her own otherwise censorious actions -- a rationale that would speak to her posse on the Left. I believe that while Fairey obviously has his own interests in mind, there are many subtle and important uses for decontextualization in art. Also: there is a difference between agitprop and other kinds of visual discourse; it's absurd to assume that these various forms of expression can't co-exist, that one would -- should -- cancel the other out.
cheers,
joy
Posted by: joy at January 14, 2008 11:30 AM
Fairey is representing the confusing cultural landscape kids from the 80's suburbs found themselves in. Here's a suggestion for his critics:
Meet with him and offer to teach him about "real peoples struggles". Take him to the library to read about the history. Take him to a welfare office. Take him to the fields where migrant workers toil. Take him to an East LA public school. Help him see what's really going on. Then maybe he can become your ally instead of your enemy.
Criticism is good, but I think it must be matched with the opportunity for growth and education.
Posted by: Eric at February 12, 2008 10:58 AM
He is aware of the history of these struggles, it is clear from interviews that he is very intelligent and conscious of "struggles".
I don't consider him an enemy, yet feel like the above piece points out where Fairey and imitators fall short of conveying something more useful than "consume" (or not, or obey, or whatever).
It is about growth and education, it will be more valuable when connections are drawn so people can learn.
Posted by: kc at February 12, 2008 4:57 PM
Fairey's theft of other peoples work, and more notably, trying to make obscene amounts of money off other peoples hard won political struggles is not "Decontextualization" or, to use a better word, "Detournement". Fairey isn't Guy Debord, and no matter how many jackasses wheatpaste Andre the Giant posters, this isn't the streets of Paris in May of 68. Where as the issue of the use of the "Molotov Man" revolved around its use, mostly, in non-commercial, overtly political work, where I think its fair game, Fairey is just using it to sell t-shirts. And not especially good t-shirts either (he almost always manages to ruin whatever piece he "appropriates").
I don't necessarily agree with all of Vallen's positions, pointed out on his blog, and I'm a bigger fan of post-modern art than he. But it boils my blood to see idiots lauding some millionaire white-boy for his "daring" works, while legitimate, minority voices are passed over.
Posted by: Sean S. at April 1, 2008 11:15 AM
it's all relative.. i can hear both sides of the story. as a Dj, i'm loving dissecting old source and regurgitating my own collages from them. i'm not picasso. I dont want to be.
shepard's work is both inspiring and inspired by others. it's just another form of creativity.
it's really not that different from this article.
it's inspired by mark vallen who was obviously an inspiration to the author (albeit from what i gather, a pretty bitter artist who would never draw on any resources to do his art.) it's well written, well thought out and surely required research - no doubt the public pool of information known as google helped out in writing it. it's creativity, it's a collage.
good for the people that are putting their stuff out there, recycling past images. past stories. good.
one more thing.. i just finished watching zwiggof's amazing movie on robert crumb.. there's some line in there where robert says something like.. " you think i make this stuff up!? come on.. i'm gonna draw a telephone pole from memory ? these are all taken from photos and images i've collected.."
(forgive me for the far-from-direct quote, it's another form of recycling something from the past)
Posted by: bruce at April 14, 2008 10:23 PM
Bruce,
you seem to be missing the point, its not that we aren't influenced and inspired by what we like, what surrounds us. This is a critique exploring, politically and thru "power", that Fairey is capable of "stealing" images, and using them in decontextualized ways.
It's raising questions of ethics about how is it appropriate to use someone else's work, and doesn't say "never use someone else's work" nor claims that kind of purity within the authors own work.
Posted by: kc at April 16, 2008 9:27 AM
Out of curiosity, where did Fairey get the image of the girl used in the "War by Numbers" (Red/Gold) prints?
See, for example,
www.thegiant.org/wiki/images/4/46/War_by_numbers_red.gifPosted by: anon at April 17, 2008 6:58 PM
The "War by Numbers" image was given to him by the charity he made the print for, supposedly.
obeygiant.com/post/grenade-girlHere's the Aiko image that article is referring to (4th from the left).
www.ladyaiko.com/paints/index.htmlPosted by: Sean at May 2, 2008 3:25 AM
what if it was faireys idea all along? like him making fun of the masses by stealing public artwork and reforming it into his 'brand', critiquing our dumbed down and pacified nation?
its easy to see him as a sell out and a theft... but what if that was his point all along? would that make him succesful? would that still keep him considered as 'bad' instead of 'good'?
i liked faireys work... before i saw this. this does make me cringe a bit. i liked his work because of its aesthetical value. i would of liked it more if he gave credit where credit is due and used his remakes of the work to further the ideas of his sources.
Posted by: ashley at June 26, 2008 1:16 PM
Hi there - I'm wondering if josh macphee can get in touch with me as i appear to have been copied my mr fairey in some way and we can also talk old scottish history, distant clan relations and how the macphees
are the most feared clan in scotland : )
Posted by: sgt.serenity at August 5, 2008 6:26 AM
Im listening to Mark Holster's, from Negativeland, talk about "Fair Use" and transformative reuse, from October 2006 at The New School.
The mp3's can be found on the WFMU blog
Its a different perspective on reuse and appropriation than Fairey and many artists have. Its very blunt and up front.
It seems that visual artists, like Shepard, care to present themselves as authentic and creative.
Start at Part 5: The U2 Lawsuit, for the appropriation & fair use topics
Posted by: kc at August 8, 2008 7:03 PM
